Research gets to the core of Earth’s formation

March 3, 2015 1:03 PM

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Violent collisions between the growing Earth and other objects in the solar system generated significant amounts of iron vapor, according to a new study by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Richard Kraus and colleagues.

The results show that iron vaporizes easily during impact events, which forces planetary scientists to change how they think about the growth of planets and evolution of our solar system.